Lyon Opera Ballet/Cunningham Forever review – a modern master's wild ambition

The Guardian

20-03-2025

Merce Cunningham was always ahead of his time: as a dancer with the pioneering Martha Graham; at the forefront of mid-20th-century experimentalism with partner John Cage; and using computer power to create choreography in the 1990s, three decades before the AI boom. Cunningham died in 2009, aged 90, and one of his dancers, Cédric Andrieux, now leads Lyon Opera Ballet, which pays tribute to Cunningham revisiting two works, Beach Birds (1991) and Biped (1999).
Beach Birds is a classic. The dancers wear white unitards with a black stripe extending across the chest to gloved hands, and they do look bird-like, arms curved away from the body like wings or flippers. They jump and hop and tilt in balances, with quirky twists of the head. It is fiendishly difficult work, such careful placing of every limb, the absolute muscle control. The purity of form could seem detached, and yet with the peacefulness of Cage's sparse score, there's so much breathing space, a deep plié (bend) in second position can feel somehow emotional. The whole thing engenders intense curiosity, like watching animals in the wild.
The creation of Biped was aided by the Life Forms computer programme, which allowed Cunningham to play with different permutations of the body on screen – in ways that wouldn't come naturally to a human dancer – and then transfer them on to his company, making the technical demands on them even more difficult. Although the effect may be dry, the irony is it takes years of sweat and grit and sacrifice, so much human striving to be able to do it. Biped also features an early use of motion capture technology to create outlines of dancing bodies projected on a scrim in front of the stage, and it's a strangely human addition, these ciphers dancing through the air; the tension between people and tech is a genuinely fascinating one.
The movement is continually evolving while never quite arriving anywhere, accompanied by the shifting textures of Gavin Bryars' score, as the dancers perform what looks like Cuningham's version of petit allegro, the detailed footwork and small jumps you find in ballet. The work is no less challenging to watch now than when it was made. With Merce, you have to be willing to go there, to get sucked in and let time go. It's odd dance, really, but essential.
Lyon Opera Ballet/Cunningham Forever is at Sadler's Wells, London, until 20 March. The Dance Reflections by Van Cleef and Arpels festival is in various venues in London until 8 April.